Leadership

Kim Foreman | Executive Director | kim.foreman@ehw.org

Kim Foreman is the Executive Director for Environmental Health Watch. Kim brings nearly 20 years of experience working on environmental justice issues in Cleveland. Kim joined EHW in 1999 as a part-time health educator, and has served in the role of Executive Director since 2015.

As the Executive Director for EHW, Kim has focused on Environmental Justice Issues and adverse outcomes of environmental exposures, both indoors and outdoors, that disproportionately impact poor and minority communities. During her eighteen years with EHW, she has developed, implemented, and managed various local, direct service, grassroots projects, worked on national projects, spoken at local and national conventions, and has helped EHW obtain national attention for its work through outlets such as the New York Times and Al Jezeera English.

Kim became passionate for the work of EHW through some of her own lived experiences, including living some of the challenges that the clients they serve. It wasn’t until joining EHW that Kim realized how severely children and families were being impacted by environmental hazards in the home, like lead.

Kim Foreman holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a minor in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University. She also a licensed lead risk assessor and Roots of Success instructor. Kim lives on the West side of Cleveland and has two adult children.

Akbar Tyler | Director of Training and Healthy Homes

Akbar is Director of Training and Healthy Homes for EHW. Akbar started with EHW in 1992 and has over 18 years of experience working with in-home assessments, field research, and education and training of tenants and other providers.

During his 18 years, Akbar has gained vast experience conducting home hazard assessments, remediation, family education, healthy house training, and research. Over the years his emphasis in research has evolved to meet the changing needs of the community. From lead poisoning, to asthma, pesticide exposure, and other health conditions associations with substandard housing.

Akbar has a passion for cultivating people and soil and sharing his knowledge about the value of nutrition and the importance of maintaining a healthy home. Akbar is a husband and father to 6 wonderful children and currently lives on Cleveland’s west side. At home he can be found working in his garden and tending to his ducks.

Justine Lindemann | FreshLo Assistant Project Manager

Justine is a PhD candidate in the department of Development Sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, although she now lives in Cleveland, OH. For her graduate level work, her focus is on cities in the rustbelt. She completed research for her Master's degree on food justice organizing in Syracuse, NY. Justine has been working in Cleveland since 2014, engaging with community gardeners, urban farmers, not-for-profits, and city employees to better understand how resources are allocated – especially in low-income communities and communities of color. Her research uses food production as a lens on larger issues of power, race, capital, and justice in the city. She currently teaches in the Political Science department of John Carroll University.

Genevieve Birkby | BUILDHealth Challenge Assistant Project Manager

Genevieve Birkby has over 10 years of experience working in community and public health, at the ground level and in research. She served as a senior leader in Baltimore City's city health department engaged in critical healthy homes and lead poisoning prevention work. She also helped lead community driven environmental health programs - eg., safe pest management in public housing and schools. She has worked in research focused on chronic disease and health disparities, tobacco and the translation and dissemination of evidence-based interventions. She obtained her Master in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007. Before that, she obtained her Bachelors and Masters in Sociology from DePaul University in Chicago.